Cathedral City enacts 45-day moratorium on short-term vacation rentals

During Cathedral City’s Wednesday night council meeting, a 45-day short-term vacation rental moratorium was enacted after a unanimous vote from councilmembers.

City staff had proposed a temporary moratorium on licensing short-term rentals while the city looks at how it can increase enforcement on problem rentals.

“After listening for more than an hour of testimony from the community, the council unanimously decided on a second vote to amend the initial urgency moratorium to allow for all pending STVR applications in the queue to continue to be processed for approval, but immediately halt any new STVR applications for at least 45 days,” read a news release sent out by Cathedral City Communications Manager Chris Parman.

Right now there are 352 licensed short term rentals in the city. In January through May 2019, there have been 36 noise-related calls from 22 rental properties., but just 6 of those rentals account for two-thirds of those calls.

Last week we aired story speaking with a homeowner that lived next to a short term vacation rental. She says the constant noise issues next door are forcing her to consider other places to live and feels once the Fourth of July comes around, it’s only going to get worse.